The Internet and information technology make electronic data one of the most important aspects of running a business or even personal life. Data applications and systems are used in virtually all industries in many different ways. But the data generated by different applications and systems need to be managed, interpreted, and exchanged.
For example, healthcare organizations often utilize many different healthcare applications and systems to perform various services, both internal and external to the organizations. Much of the information collected by these applications and systems, such as data and documents, needs to be uploaded and shared among internal systems and external systems. However, the information collected often is unstructured.
Thus, a challenge currently faced by many healthcare organizations, despite their size, is that a large amount of unstructured contents generated on a daily basis are generally in native form and may be stagnant and unusable by the other applications. For example, unless a scanned document, a digital photo, or any electronic file, such as a PDF file, is uploaded and identified by a human, a healthcare application may be unable to identify what is in the file or who the file belongs to. Therefore, managing unstructured data in a healthcare organization is often expensive, time-consuming, and error-prone.
Another challenge faced by healthcare organizations is the difficulty to exchange unstructured files among healthcare organizations. As a result, oftentimes the files are printed and faxed to the recipients. This practice is not only time-consuming and expensive, but also leaves holes in the electronic patient record keeping, which may further cause security risks.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solve the problems set forth above and other problems.